Monday, November 24, 2014

One of the saddest things about fighting stereotypes is no matter how much you achieve, said stereotypes don't go away. In fact, they get repeated with force and volume.

As an African-American, I've dealt with being called lazy, criminal-minded and stupid more times than I can count.

As a gay man, I've had to deal with the following, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

Lord Christopher Monckton, a columnist for the far-right WorldNetDaily, today came to the defense of an Australian politician, Rosalie Crestani, who is trying to pass a law to prevent her local government from mentioning LGBT issues and holding diversity trainings.
Monckton, who derisively refers to the LGBT community as “QWERTY,” like the keyboard layout, said that Crestani discovered during a consultation with “an expert in non-heterosexual lifestyles” that “homosexuals had an average of 500-1,000 partners in their sexually active lifetime, and that some had as many as 20,000.”
“One wonders how they found time for anything else,” Monckton quips, adding that gay people lead “short, miserable lives” as part of their “deathstyle.

Regardless of what Monckton implies, if gay men did actually have up to 20,000 sex partners, no matter how long or short our lifespans would be, we would NOT be unhappy. I can assure you that. Seriously though, the idea that gay men are oversexed and have an enormous amount of sex is repeated by members of the anti-gay right, even if this idea contradicts a lot of the other things they say about gay men, as Monckton demonstrates as he continues to ruminate about alleged gay sexual habits:

As the experts she has consulted have
pointed out, the QWERTYs – who represent about 0.5 percent of the
population – have brilliantly promoted themselves by carefully shifting
the debate away from what homosexuals actually do to each other (just
ask any proctologist: all of them are heartily sick of trying to repair
the gross damage caused by deviant sexual practices) and on to
“celebrating” what is misleadingly presented as a “valid alternative
lifestyle.”

How in the world can gays be 0.5 percent of the population and be having all of this sex? And just what proctologists did Monckton consult? The man is lying through his teeth. And he proves something awful about anti-gay stereotypes. No matter how many times they are refuted, they are constantly repeated. The following is from an anti-gay comic published in the 1980s, which I have featured several times. It pretty much says the same thing Monckton does:

It's easy to laugh at this stuff now. But don't. Though, with the exception of folks like Matt Barber, Linda Harvey, Peter LaBarbera, Brian Camenker, and Bryan Fischer, the vast majority of the anti-gay right wouldn't dare to overtly repeat this mess, we should remember how successful such stereotypes were decades ago when they were repeated openly and we should also remember how successful they are now when repeated in places like Uganda and Russia when enterprising homophobes exploited religious beliefs to attach such awful images to the idea that homosexuality is a sin.

That's why when we read things like what Monckton wrote, we can't be quick to laugh or be nonchalant about it. Stereotypes are generally used to hurt people and they aren't hurting you, you can bet they are hurting someone else.

In the 50s and 60s, they said we were perverts who ought to be jailed.In the 70s, they said we recruit children.In the 80s, they said we were diseased freaks who run around catching AIDS.In the 90s, they said we wanted "special rights."In the 2000s, they said we wanted to redefine marriage.Now they claim we are trying to put Christians out of business and jail them.

According to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, those against marriage equality aren't wasting any time plotting their next move. In fact, they see the victories for marriage equality as a gateway to allow discrimination against gays on larger scale:

Most state legislatures don’t come back into session for a few
months, yet legislators are already announcing their intent to introduce
so-called “religious freedom” bills for 2015. These bills would
introduce identical or even broader versions of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)—the law that was distorted to allow corporations like Hobby Lobby to use religion to ignore the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. Legislators are advocating for these bills by claiming they will create broad religious exemptions from nondiscrimination laws.

AU
strongly believes in religious freedom and appropriately tailored
religious accommodations. Despite the fact that these bills claim to
protect religious freedom, in reality they are a threat to civil rights.
The language in these bills is too broad and unclear, and could open
the door for serious and even harmful unintended consequences, including
nullifying discrimination, public safety, and health laws.

Several
states pushed RFRA bills in 2014, but experienced passionate backlash
from civil rights groups and the business community: even the NFL
threatened to change the location of the 2015 Super Bowl if the RFRA bill passed in Arizona. The bill still passed the legislature, but Governor Brewer thankfully vetoed it.

At
least five states have announced religious freedom bills for the
upcoming session: Georgia, Michigan, Texas, North Carolina, and Utah.

About Me

Alvin McEwen is 46-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.